Difference between revisions of "Robotics weekly meetings"
From IridiaWiki
Jump to navigationJump to search| (67 intermediate revisions by 6 users not shown) | |||
| Line 1: | Line 1: | ||
| − | ==Purpose== |
+ | ==Purpose of the meetings== |
| + | The robotics meetings are organized to help all roboticists of the lab to accomplish their work, gain knowledge, share, brainstorm, and encourage creativity in general. |
||
| − | # '''Community'''. Keep everyone updated as to what other work is going on in the lab |
||
| + | Apart from technical questions, these meetings are also a good occasion to practice our soft-skills, such as presentation skills, to maintain/increase the quality of our work. |
||
| − | # '''Research'''. Cross germination. Get feedback. Get help on problems. Get ideas. |
||
| − | # '''Admin'''. Lab administration. |
||
| − | <br> |
||
==Format== |
==Format== |
||
| − | # Presentation |
+ | # Presentation: Between 15 and 45 minutes, depending on your needs |
| + | #* New experiment to come |
||
| − | #* Work you have been doing |
||
| + | #* Current work |
||
| − | #* Reading you have been doing in the context of your work |
||
| + | #* Presention about a paper in robotics litterature on current-day topics |
||
| − | #* Other reading on something you are passionate about |
||
| + | #* PhD presentations rehearsals |
||
| − | # Swarmanoid internal meeting (0 - 50 mins) |
||
| + | # Discussion on the presentation: 20-30 minutes |
||
| + | # Brainstorming time: list of research questions everyone can ask to the audience to get people's opinion, collaborate, etc. |
||
| + | '''''About the presentations''''' |
||
| + | Pay special attention to the support that you will use during your presentation: |
||
| − | Try and make your session as involving as possible for everyone: |
||
| + | * Avoid fancy powerpoints templates: they don't help to get to your point |
||
| − | * Send round material to be read beforehand. |
||
| + | * Less is more: ask yourself if everything in your presentation is mandatory for understanding your point of view. If the answer is no: delete it. |
||
| − | * Ask people before the meeting what aspects of your work / reading they would like to know about or discuss. |
||
| + | * 1 slide per minute is a good practice, unless really necessary (typically a slide with an equation will last longer: in this case, you can split it in multiple slides, make things appear one at a time, etc, to increase clarity) |
||
| − | * Think about implications of what you are presenting for the research direction of the lab as a whole - methodologies, technologies etc. |
||
| + | * Try to keep your speech as clear as possible during your presentation |
||
| − | <br> |
||
| + | '''''About the contents themselves''''' |
||
| − | ==Timing & Attendance== |
||
| + | * Think about implications of what you are presenting for the research direction of the lab as a whole - methodologies, technologies etc. It is always nice for everyone to have a preliminary introduction on your work to understand the technical points. |
||
| + | * To keep things coherent, try to organize your slides having in mind a 'scenario' - a series of messages that you want people to recall after your presentation. |
||
| + | ==Timing== |
||
| − | The weekly meetings take place on |
||
| + | The bi-monthly meetings take place on |
||
| − | <center> '''Wednesdays at 16.00 (temporary time schedule)''' </center> |
||
| + | <center> '''Fridays at 14.00.''' </center> |
||
| − | Unless: |
||
| − | * A given Wednesday is a public holiday, or |
||
| − | * Something very important (like a Ph.D. defense) is overlapping. |
||
| + | beggining on Friday, February 14th 2014. |
||
| − | If either should happen the meeting is postponed to the next day. |
||
| + | The frequency of the meetings can increase if needed. |
||
| − | '''Please indicate on this wiki page if you are not going to be able to attend a meeting''' (no later than the Friday before). |
||
| + | ==Attendance== |
||
| − | If you forget to note your absence in advance you will be severely punished and will be forced to buy a nice, big cake for the following meeting. |
||
| − | <br><br> |
||
| + | Everyone that subscribed to the robotics mailing list is invited to the meetings. Send an e-mail to the organizer of the meetings in case you cannot attend the meeting, at least 2 days before the meeting, for the others to know their audience. |
||
| − | ==Previous Meetings== |
||
| + | (Policy change: you won't be punished anymore in case you don't come, but you can buy the organizer a beer - he loves the Trappe Quadrupel) |
||
| + | =Forthcoming Meetings= |
||
| − | See [[Previous MEETROBOT2008 meetings | Minutes and agendas from previous meetings (2007-2008)]]. |
||
| − | |||
| − | See [[Previous MEETROBOT meetings | Minutes and agendas from previous meetings (older)]]. |
||
| − | |||
| − | |||
| − | ==Wednesday 4th February 2009 - Internal Meeting - Room C2-223, 2nd floor== |
||
| − | |||
| − | '''''Agenda''''' |
||
| − | |||
| − | # '''Presentation''' |
||
| − | #* None |
||
| − | # '''Internal Meeting / Discussion''' |
||
| − | #* Swarmanoid Project: Camera Segmentation Software |
||
| − | |||
| − | '''''Reading material''''' |
||
| − | |||
| − | '''''People who will be absent''''' |
||
| + | <br> |
||
| + | <center> |
||
| + | '''The schedule of the forthcoming robotics meetings can also be found in the''' |
||
| + | [http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/Calendars/month.php IRIDIA calendar] |
||
| + | </center> |
||
<br><br> |
<br><br> |
||
| + | =Past Meetings= |
||
| − | ==Wednesday 11th February 2009 - Giovanni - Room C2-223, 2nd floor== |
||
| − | |||
| − | '''''Agenda''''' |
||
| − | |||
| − | # '''Presentation''' |
||
| − | #* Interference Reduction through Task Partitioning |
||
| − | The talk is about the use of task partitioning as a way to reduce |
||
| − | interference in a spatially constrained harvesting task. Interference |
||
| − | is one of the key problems in large cooperating groups. We present a |
||
| − | simple method to allocate individuals of a robotic swarm to a |
||
| − | partitioned task, and study how this task partition can increase system |
||
| − | performance by reducing sources of interference. The method is |
||
| − | experimentally studied, both in an environment with a constrained area |
||
| − | and an environment without the constraint. |
||
| − | # '''Internal Meeting / Discussion''' |
||
| − | #* Swarmanoid Project: To be defined |
||
| − | |||
| − | '''''Reading material''''' |
||
| − | |||
| − | '''''People who will be absent''''' |
||
| − | |||
| − | <br><br> |
||
| − | |||
| − | ==Wednesday 18th February 2009 - Carlo - Meeting room in Architecture Dept.== |
||
| − | |||
| − | '''''Agenda''''' |
||
| − | |||
| − | # '''Presentation''' |
||
| − | #* Heterogeneous Group Size Regulation (please edit) |
||
| − | # '''Internal Meeting / Discussion''' |
||
| − | #* Swarmanoid Project: To be defined |
||
| − | |||
| − | '''''Reading material''''' |
||
| − | |||
| − | '''''People who will be absent''''' |
||
| − | |||
| − | <br><br> |
||
| − | |||
| − | ==Wednesday 25th February 2009 - Meeting Suspended - Room C2-223, 2nd floor== |
||
| − | |||
| − | |||
| − | <br><br> |
||
| − | |||
| − | ==Wednesday 4th March 2009 - Meeting Suspended - Room C2-223 , 2nd floor== |
||
| − | |||
| − | <br><br> |
||
| − | |||
| − | |||
| − | |||
| − | ==Wednesday 11th March 2009 - Rehan - Room C2-223 , 2nd floor - Start at 16.30== |
||
| − | |||
| − | '''''Agenda''''' |
||
| − | |||
| − | # '''Presentation''' |
||
| − | #* Morphogenesis (please edit) |
||
| − | # '''Internal Meeting / Discussion''' |
||
| − | #* Swarmanoid Project: To be defined |
||
| − | |||
| − | '''''Reading material''''' |
||
| − | |||
| − | '''''People who will be absent''''' |
||
| − | |||
| − | <br><br> |
||
| − | |||
| − | ==Thursday 19th March 2009 - Eliseo and Nithin - Paduart Room, 4th floor - Start at 16.30== |
||
| − | |||
| − | '''''Agenda''''' |
||
| − | |||
| − | # '''Presentation''' |
||
| − | #* Phat-bot Assembly and Navigation |
||
| − | #* The behavioral toolkit |
||
| − | # '''Internal Meeting / Discussion''' |
||
| − | #* Swarmanoid Project: To be defined |
||
| − | '''''Abstract''''': |
||
| − | In this talk we will present the work we have been doing on the phat-bot |
||
| − | assembly and navigation. All the controllers were implemented with a new |
||
| − | architecture in mind, which made the modularity of the behaviors possible |
||
| − | in ARGoS. We call this architecture "Behavioral Toolkit" and we will present |
||
| − | it also during the talk. |
||
| − | |||
| − | '''''Reading material''''' |
||
| − | |||
| − | '''''People who will be absent''''' |
||
| − | |||
| − | <br><br> |
||
| − | |||
| − | ==Wednesday 25th March 2009 - Marco - Paduart Room, 4th floor - Start at 16.30== |
||
| − | |||
| − | '''''Agenda''''' |
||
| − | |||
| − | # '''Presentation''' |
||
| − | #* Local social influence mechanisms for collective decision making: A swarm robotics experiment |
||
| − | # '''Internal Meeting / Discussion''' |
||
| − | #* |
||
| − | |||
| − | '''''Abstract''''': |
||
| − | In human societies, groups are often perceived as superior |
||
| − | decision making entities than individuals. When an important decision |
||
| − | has to be made, groups are formed to decide on the issue. Examples |
||
| − | include referenda, elections, and juries. When individuals are part of a |
||
| − | decision making group, they are subject to social influences that can |
||
| − | affect their perception and/or their opinion on the issue. Our work is |
||
| − | inspired by this fact and we investigate whether local social influence |
||
| − | mechanisms can make a population of robots choose the best of two |
||
| − | competing alternatives. |
||
| − | |||
| − | In our experiment, a swarm of robots is faced with a binary decision |
||
| − | problem: go foraging to the left, or to the right; or push or pull a |
||
| − | family of objects, for example. Associated to each choice there is a |
||
| − | cost which is the time it takes for a group to perform the task. I will |
||
| − | show you preliminary results that suggest that simple local decision |
||
| − | rules can make an uninformed population (or even a negatively biased |
||
| − | one) choose the best strategy (in terms of task completion time). |
||
| − | |||
| − | '''''Reading material''''' |
||
| − | |||
| − | '''''People who will be absent''''' |
||
| − | |||
| − | <br><br> |
||
| − | |||
| − | ==Wednesday 1st April 2009 - Simulator staff - Room C2-223 , 2nd floor, 15:00 - 17:00== |
||
| − | |||
| − | '''''Agenda''''' |
||
| − | |||
| − | # '''Presentation''' |
||
| − | #* None |
||
| − | # '''Internal Meeting / Discussion''' |
||
| − | #* Technical meeting with the simulator staff |
||
| − | |||
| − | '''''Reading material''''' |
||
| − | |||
| − | '''''People who will be absent''''' |
||
| − | |||
| − | <br><br> |
||
| − | |||
| − | |||
| − | ==Tuesday 7th April 2009 - Everybody - Room C2-223 , 2nd floor, 14:00 - 16:00== |
||
| − | |||
| − | '''''Agenda''''' |
||
| − | |||
| − | # '''Presentation''' |
||
| − | #* TBA |
||
| − | # '''Internal Meeting / Discussion''' |
||
| − | #* The simulator |
||
| − | #** The Simulator Constitution |
||
| − | #** ARGoS BT scripting discussion follow-up |
||
| − | #** The BT exposed |
||
| − | |||
| − | '''''Reading material''''' |
||
| − | |||
| − | '''''People who will be absent''''' |
||
| − | |||
| − | <br><br> |
||
| − | |||
| − | ==Wednesday 15th April 2009 - Meeting suspended== |
||
| − | |||
| − | '''''Agenda''''' |
||
| − | |||
| − | # '''Presentation''' |
||
| − | #* TBA |
||
| − | # '''Internal Meeting / Discussion''' |
||
| − | #* |
||
| − | |||
| − | '''''Reading material''''' |
||
| − | |||
| − | '''''People who will be absent''''' |
||
| − | |||
| − | <br><br> |
||
| − | |||
| − | ==Wednesday 22nd April 2009 - Manuele OR Internal Meeting - Room C2-223 , 2nd floor, 15:00 - 17:00== |
||
| − | |||
| − | '''''Agenda''''' |
||
| − | |||
| − | # '''Presentation''' |
||
| − | #* A Reliable Distributed Algorithm for Group Size Estimation with Minimal Communication Requirements |
||
| − | # '''Internal Meeting / Discussion''' |
||
| − | #* |
||
| − | |||
| − | '''''Abstract''''': |
||
| − | In this talk I will present a method that lets individual robots in a group |
||
| − | estimate the size of the group in a distributed manner. The process is |
||
| − | loosely based on the signaling behavior of fireflies and |
||
| − | crickets. Melhuish et al. first devised a method based on local robot signaling |
||
| − | to estimate the group's size. Each robot emits a signal and can |
||
| − | perceive the signals of neighboring robots in close |
||
| − | proximity. Following the approach of Melhuish et al., our robots count the number of |
||
| − | emitted signals over a suitably defined period of time. Experiments |
||
| − | show that the estimates calculated with Melhuish et al. method display a great |
||
| − | deal of noise. We modify their method so as to sensibly stabilize the |
||
| − | output. We assess the quality of our method through extensive |
||
| − | simulation-based experiments. |
||
| − | |||
| − | '''''Reading material''''' |
||
| − | |||
| − | '''''People who will be absent''''' |
||
| − | |||
| − | <br><br> |
||
| − | |||
| − | ==Wednesday 29th April 2009 - Antal - Room C2-223 , 2nd floor, 15:00 - 17:00== |
||
| − | |||
| − | '''''Agenda''''' |
||
| − | |||
| − | # '''Presentation''' |
||
| − | #* TBA |
||
| − | # '''Internal Meeting / Discussion''' |
||
| − | #* |
||
| − | |||
| − | '''''Reading material''''' |
||
| − | |||
| − | '''''People who will be absent''''' |
||
| − | |||
| − | <br><br> |
||
| − | |||
| − | ==Wednesday 6th May 2009 - Ali - Room C2-223 , 2nd floor, 15:00 - 17:00== |
||
| − | |||
| − | '''''Agenda''''' |
||
| − | |||
| − | # '''Presentation''' |
||
| − | #* TBA |
||
| − | # '''Internal Meeting / Discussion''' |
||
| − | #* |
||
| − | |||
| − | '''''Reading material''''' |
||
| − | |||
| − | '''''People who will be absent''''' |
||
| − | |||
| − | <br><br> |
||
| + | * February 14th, 2014: "Environmentally-driven collective construction with unconventional materials" - Presentation about Anthony's work |
||
| − | =Tentative Schedule for the following= |
||
Latest revision as of 14:20, 17 February 2014
Purpose of the meetings
The robotics meetings are organized to help all roboticists of the lab to accomplish their work, gain knowledge, share, brainstorm, and encourage creativity in general. Apart from technical questions, these meetings are also a good occasion to practice our soft-skills, such as presentation skills, to maintain/increase the quality of our work.
Format
- Presentation: Between 15 and 45 minutes, depending on your needs
- New experiment to come
- Current work
- Presention about a paper in robotics litterature on current-day topics
- PhD presentations rehearsals
- Discussion on the presentation: 20-30 minutes
- Brainstorming time: list of research questions everyone can ask to the audience to get people's opinion, collaborate, etc.
About the presentations
Pay special attention to the support that you will use during your presentation:
- Avoid fancy powerpoints templates: they don't help to get to your point
- Less is more: ask yourself if everything in your presentation is mandatory for understanding your point of view. If the answer is no: delete it.
- 1 slide per minute is a good practice, unless really necessary (typically a slide with an equation will last longer: in this case, you can split it in multiple slides, make things appear one at a time, etc, to increase clarity)
- Try to keep your speech as clear as possible during your presentation
About the contents themselves
- Think about implications of what you are presenting for the research direction of the lab as a whole - methodologies, technologies etc. It is always nice for everyone to have a preliminary introduction on your work to understand the technical points.
- To keep things coherent, try to organize your slides having in mind a 'scenario' - a series of messages that you want people to recall after your presentation.
Timing
The bi-monthly meetings take place on
beggining on Friday, February 14th 2014.
The frequency of the meetings can increase if needed.
Attendance
Everyone that subscribed to the robotics mailing list is invited to the meetings. Send an e-mail to the organizer of the meetings in case you cannot attend the meeting, at least 2 days before the meeting, for the others to know their audience. (Policy change: you won't be punished anymore in case you don't come, but you can buy the organizer a beer - he loves the Trappe Quadrupel)
Forthcoming Meetings
The schedule of the forthcoming robotics meetings can also be found in the IRIDIA calendar
Past Meetings
- February 14th, 2014: "Environmentally-driven collective construction with unconventional materials" - Presentation about Anthony's work
